


Transference

by x_los



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Bathroom Sex, F/M, Jealousy, M/M, Possessive Behavior, Season/Series 01, Semi-Public Sex, Threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 14:20:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6010870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/x_los/pseuds/x_los
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blake didn't think it was very likely that Avon would develop a sudden urge to act as his wing man for the evening. As it happened, he was right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Transference

**Author's Note:**

> beta'd by aralias  
> first reader elviaprose
> 
> This fic owes a lot to a Bryn Lantry zine fic (from the year I was born) called ‘All of Twelve Hours’ (Blake’s 7: The Other Side 1. Au, 1986.3.), which has a lot of lovely, lovely stuff in it.
> 
> It also owes something to the bathroom sex scene in _The Social Network_ , which may or may not understand that it's homoerotic.

Blake had been more than a little surprised when Avon had volunteered to go to a bar with him. Not reluctantly agreed to do so, mind—he’d actually _suggested_ it. He’d asked what Blake would be getting up to on shore leave, heard the answer with a slight frown, and smoothly said “I might join you.” Then he’d smiled, toothily. “That is, of course, if you don’t mind”—making this piece of politeness not the quotidian nothing it would have been in anyone else’s mouth, but half a threat.

“Not at all,” Blake had returned placidly, as though this wasn’t a radical departure from essentially everything he knew about Avon. Namely, that Avon hated company in general, and, more specifically, Blake’s ideas and Blake himself. Since Blake didn’t hate Avon back, but actually rather liked him and would have liked to spend more time getting to know him, he wasn’t sure whom Avon thought he was inconveniencing with this suggestion offered as a challenge. Perhaps he’d been wrong, and Avon _didn’t_ hate him, and was interested in spending more time with _him_ too. It didn’t seem likely, but then neither did Avon developing a sudden whimsical desire to act as Blake’s wing man for the evening, and here they were.

Though he didn’t like to boast about it, Blake didn’t have a lot of bad nights when it came to picking people up. He could usually count on himself to find someone he was interested in who was also interested in him. He was fairly catholic in his tastes, willing and able to see the attraction of a lot of people, at least for short liaisons. He was also reasonably attractive, considered charismatic, and forthright. The last quality was probably the most useful to him in these situations. Bars were easy. You paid attention to someone, behaved decently, asked if they were game for further entertainments, either didn’t take a ‘no’ personally or suggested a venue and went there, found out what they liked in bed and tried to give it to them (or worked out some compromise, if what they liked was untenable—though there again, Blake was fairly catholic in his tastes) and thanked them for their company politely after.

Blake had no idea how Avon fared on nights out like this, although he could guess. Avon was handsome and witty, and could probably be charming, when he thought it was worth his time (not that he’d ever seemed to consider the effort of being charming to Blake particularly worthwhile). Blake thought it likely that Avon was fairly fastidious about who he went to bed with, but then he probably had his pick, so that must work out all right for him. And Blake assumed it must also work out for his pick—it was difficult to imagine that Avon wasn’t as surprising and impressive there as he was everywhere else. Which Blake tried not to think about even now, sitting in a bar with the man, because it really wasn’t any of his business.

Right now Avon seemed to be practicing civility on Blake in preparation for finding a more worthwhile target for his efforts. He asked what Blake wanted to drink and ordered for the two of them, quite casually. Avon paid with communal, treasure-room money. It came from the same place as the money in Blake’s pockets, but the way Avon paid somehow suggested that _he_ was paying. Blake had never thought he’d live to see Avon spotting him a drink. He considered making a joke of it, but Avon seemed to be working towards something he wanted to talk about. Though he was taking his time about it. It was almost as though he were nervous, which wasn’t at all like him.

Avon complimented Blake’s outfit (albeit backhandedly), and led Blake into a detailed (and intimately low-voiced—someone might overhear them, after all) discussion of their work on Aquitar and their own teleport system, and whether the project had been right about _anything_. Blake supposed he took the position that, as the theory underlying the two systems was fundamentally different, the vast disparity between the operating mechanisms of the working system and the failed one couldn’t tell them much about the failed project and whether it had been on anything like the right track. Aquitar had been about figuring out how to move matter interstitially, rather than about achieving Liberator’s direct point A to point B transportation. Often you got that sort of thing, historically—parallel discoveries of similar technology that worked on wildly divergent first principles. Did Avon remember the Battle of the Currents?

He didn’t. Blake explained, because it was a good story, actually, with a poor doomed eccentric hero, a right bastard of a villain, and at least one unfairly slain horse.

Avon was listening intently, asking quiet questions—laughing when Blake said something snide and caustic about some of the players involved. Avon said Blake made a sound argument, but that he had a theory that the way their teleport worked meant that Aquitar’s core principle never _could_ have.

“I have a feeling I’m about to be put down.” Blake gave him a wry grin. “Go on, thrill me with your acumen.”

Avon grinned back at him. “I intend to.”

Blake still had the feeling he was being worked around to something, but before Avon got to it, they were approached by a friendly woman with a round, cheerful face, a nice smile and a forward disposition Blake liked immediately.

“Mind if I join you?” she asked, clearly also asking if Blake was free and looking not to be for a few hours.

“Not at all,” Blake said. He glanced over at Avon—it was a little rude to take up with company before Avon had found anyone, but he didn’t want to put her off, and this _was_ what they’d come to do.

Avon seemed to agree about the rudeness. His lips were pursed. Blake gave him a quick, apologetic half-grin.

The woman seemed admirably quick on the uptake. “I’m here with a friend, actually,” she said, and waved over a statuesque blonde woman Blake would have bet money was Avon’s type. Avon glanced from Blake to the newcomer, seemed to come to a decision, gave her a glittering smile, and introduced himself. With, naturally, a fake name.

Blake moved in to accommodate ‘Alice’, and Avon scooted over in the booth so that ‘Risha’ could take a seat. There wasn’t much space, and so Avon ended up pressed against Blake’s left side. Blake found this slightly distracting, but not unpleasant, per se. Avon was warmer than Blake might have thought, and the slight pressure of his body against Blake’s was almost comforting. Avon had dressed to seduce, and he was wearing appealing cologne.

Blake set himself to work finding out where Alice was from (Kestralli—it was exactly as grim as everyone said, why did he think she’d left?), what she did for a living (biosphere architecture—but it was really just a job, to her) and what she was really passionate about (food—one day she wanted to open a restaurant, she _loved_ real bread, did he know anything about proper, made food? He didn’t know much, but he was interested in learning, and she was interested in telling him.). But wasn’t it embarrassing, how she’d just gone on (not at all, Blake assured her with a smile)—what about him?

Drawing people out like this was an exercise of skill, not an accident. For a few hours Blake watched the face of the person he was with carefully. He smiled when they smiled, letting easy affection pass and build between them. He asked good questions. He enjoyed the pretense that he _could_ be with someone. He _missed_ relationships. Bringing his focus to bear on listening made people feel special and appreciated, and Blake was particularly good at it because he _was_ interested in people and their lives, and he enjoyed the act of making people happy.

“Oh,” Blake said, because it wasn’t safe to talk about himself even vaguely in circumstances like these, “I’m not terribly interesting, I’m afraid. Chevron and I work in interplanetary shipping. We’re here on business, just for a night or two.”

“Are you the captain?” Alice asked teasingly.

“He’d like to think so,” Avon said, crossing his arms and butting into the conversation with a thin smile.

“Are _you_ the captain, then?” Risha asked Avon.

“There isn’t really one,” Blake said firmly. “He and I are partners.”

Avon tensed against him and made a derisive noise.

“ _Yes?_ ” Blake asked sharply.

“That is exactly what we are not, at present. Besides, by that logic, I can exalt in being just as important to the operation as,” his mouth twisted for an instant, “Willa and Han.”

Blake felt his face scrunch. He didn’t like to acknowledge that there _was_ a command structure, but it was true that one had developed without his intending it. If Avon was his first lieutenant, the person he felt he’d have to pass the Liberator to if anything happened to him, then Jenna and Cally were his seconds. Vila and Gan certainly brought valuable skills to their endeavors, but they _did_ have less responsibility than the others.

“We’re all in this together,” Blake protested, knowing it sounded weak.

“Part owners, if you will?” Avon bared his teeth—Blake wouldn’t have called it a smile. “But that is _not_ how we make decisions, is it Jake?”

“Can you just leave it for once?” Blake snapped. He sighed, then turned a more pleasant expression on Alice. “I’m sorry to talk business when we’re on holiday. I’ll _try_ not to do it again.” He meant that as a warning to Avon, as much as anything.

Blake supposed _this_ was probably what Avon had wanted to talk to him about. He’d wanted to open another round of arguments about Blake’s decision-making process. Avon offered plenty of critique, but he never seemed to contribute his _own_ ideas and alternatives, which was a pity because Blake would have _welcomed_ a bit of help. He’d had a whole leadership team he’d relied on, in the Freedom Party. Now he had only a handful of people, and that included a deputy who wanted to go into piracy, and possibly start by marooning him.

Stupid, Blake chastised himself. He’d been _stupid_ to think it might be anything else. Avon was never pleasant to him, or, that Blake had seen, to anyone without an ulterior motive. Really, Blake thought he should probably be grateful that tonight Avon had tried politeness to get whatever it was that he wanted, but actually Blake felt disappointed and suddenly exhausted and not much in the mood to be here.

Take a walk, he told himself. See if you feel any better. There isn’t any point getting upset with Avon for not _liking_ you. You don’t _need_ him to, and anyway, he probably can’t help it. So what if you wish he would, if you’d like to matter to him? Take a ‘no’ gracefully.

“I’m heading up to the bar, would you like a drink?” Blake asked Alice.

“I’ll have another of these,” Avon answered smoothly.

“Get it yourself,” Blake said calmly, still smiling at Alice. Making a joke of it, when it wasn’t quite.

“I’ll come with you,” Alice said.

“All right,” Blake said, letting her pull him out of the booth by the hand. It wasn’t a bad idea. Maybe he could loose himself again, chatting with her. Pretend, for a little while. It was nice, and safe, and harmless, and it felt good to be _liked_ like that for the space of a few hours.

Before they got to the bar, Alice tugged Blake into the bathroom, then into a stall. Blake was too used to going along with seemingly random prompts from members of the Liberator crew to balk at this, because his life often depended on trusting them before they had time to offer explanations.

“What—?” Blake began.

“You seem stressed about work,” Alice said with good cheer. “You need to unwind, and I like a little risk in my nights out. What do you think?”

“I think,” Blake said, coming round to it, “that’s an _excellent_ idea, Alice.”

***

“I wonder what’s happened to them?” Avon said after a minute’s desultory chat, craning his head idly back to look at the bar. No sign of Blake.

Risha snorted into her drink. “The bathroom, probably. Alice really fancies your friend, and she won’t want to wait. She tends to go straight for what she wants. And she hasn’t had much luck lately, poor kid.”

Avon frowned. “A _stall?_ That’s rather— _trashy_ , isn’t it?”

Risha raised an eyebrow. “Oh, I don’t know,” she murmured. “Trashy can be fun, if you’re in the right mood.”

Avon smiled, in a determined sort of way. “And are you in the right mood, Risha?”

She toyed with her glass. “Now that you mention it, I might be.”

“Well, then. Why don’t you show me?”

***

Blake heard other people entering the restroom and bit his lip to avoid making noise. Alice was crouched down in front of him, neatly avoiding getting her dress in contact with the floor. She’d just started sucking him off, but her enthusiasm was obvious, and Blake appreciated it. He started to lose himself in the act, forgetting about Avon.

Blake started when he felt a thunk through the thin divider-panel he was leaving against. Another body. Someone else had had the same idea they had. The sound of someone undoing someone else’s flies. The sound of flesh on flesh, a hand on a cock. A soft, sharp intake of air.

Avon.

Blake had no idea how he knew, from a _breath_ , but he suddenly understood that Risha and Avon had independently thought of doing this. Or maybe Risha had mentioned Alice’s habits, and they’d decided to try it too (though he was surprised that Avon _would_ ). Or maybe Risha and Alice often—

Blake, distracted, forgot to keep a watch on himself and had to choke down a noise when Alice circled the head of his cock with a swirl of her tongue.

He closed his eyes, and through the thin partition he could hear every scrape of Avon’s jacket against the panel. Every shift in his respiration. Avon dragged his nails hard against the plasticized wood, and Blake shivered. Which made the panel between them vibrate. Something worked well for Avon, because he scrabbled at the surface, trying to find something to clutch. Blake felt almost as turned on by that potent evidence of Avon’s desire as he did by the hot mouth around him. No—just as turned on. No. No, maybe more so? God, it was wildly inappropriate and he should stop, because Avon _was_ handsome, but he was handsome like statues or portraits were. He wouldn’t appreciate even purely conceptual liberties being taken with his person. Besides, Avon had only come to this bar to chastise at him, as usual—he _really_ wasn’t interested.

Through the panel, Blake heard Avon coming in a series of choked gasps. Blake felt like telling Risha to go harder, _rip_ it out of him. Avon would have to smother a full shout if she pressed him now, even here, where it wouldn’t do to make any noise, and he suspected Avon wanted to come harder, _needed_ to—

Alice’s mouth slid up to take Blake all the way in, and with the sound of Avon’s muffled orgasm fresh in his mind, Blake came with a quiet groan. Panting, he hauled Alice up and kissed her hard, funneling the diffuse eroticism of the exchange into a dizzy embrace.

“Let me thank you properly back at the hotel,” Blake said, dropping his voice to a blatantly sexual register he didn’t normally employ.

On the other side of the barrier, Avon licked his lips. “I look forward to repaying that favor back in my room,” he said in a silky, low but audible voice.

***

Alice and Risha shared quarters with two other women: apparently their place was a poor option for intimate liaisons. Taking strangers up to the Liberator would have been madness.

“There’s some sort of major convention in town,” Avon said, sounding a little cross as he fiddled with a datapad. “I can only find one reasonable room within walking distance.”

Blake massaged the space between his eyebrows with his hand. Avon gave him the look of sympathy he sometimes extended Blake, which had occasionally tricked Blake into thinking Avon gave a fraction of a fuck about him. Such delusions typically lasted right up until the next time Avon opened his mouth.

“Damn,” Blake said definitely. “You should take it then, A—Chevron. You found it.”

Avon snorted. “I broke into a set of hotel registries. A child could do it. Hardly sufficient grounds to claim property rights.”

Blake shrugged (thinking—maybe _you_ could have as a child, I’m not sure about most other people). “We could flip a coin?”

Avon continued to examine the pad. “Oh, I don’t mind sharing if you don’t. Provided, of course, that Alice and Risha are similarly amenable. “

“Taking turns, you mean?” Blake asked. It sounded incredibly awkward for whoever had to wait.

“Nothing so pedestrian,” Avon said. “Provided Alice and Risha are willing, we might simply use the space at the same time.”

Blake blinked at him.

“It _is_ convenient,” Avon said, his expression neutral. “Have you got any better ideas?”

Blake didn’t. He even—didn’t _quite_ mind this one. Nor did Risha and Alice, when Blake apologized and explained the situation. Given their living situation, apparently it wouldn’t even be the first time.

Thus they all wound up silently sharing a lift in the hotel. Blake looked around, surveying the small space, thinking ‘This is exactly as awkward as I thought it would be. What were we _thinking?_ ’

He caught Avon’s eye by accident. Avon raised an eyebrow and shrugged at the absurdity of it, companionable and good-humored, and Blake laughed and felt better. And in the room there was no time for further awkwardness, because Alice was hauling Blake to the bed by his jacket-lapels, pulling him down on top of her.

A moment later, breaking from a kiss, Blake saw Risha hitting the bed beside her, Avon apparently having shoved her to the mattress as enthusiastically as Alice had pulled Blake. Blake realized, with a queer frisson, that Avon was next to him. They were shoulder to shoulder. He darted a glance over at Avon, only to find Avon’s face turned towards him, giving him a look a little like the one they’d shared when stepping onto the Liberator for the first time.

“Shall we?” Avon asked dryly through a grin. Blake grinned back at him, then turned back to Alice. He asked whether she had anything particular in mind, and she said she wasn’t fussy. Blake suggested fucking, got a “Yes, please” in response, and started to caress Alice’s breasts through the fabric of her top. No one fully undressed—the women were wearing dresses, and the men trousers that unzipped, and it didn’t feel entirely necessary.

Blake heard Avon suggest that he bring Risha off using his hands.

“I’ve been told I’m rather good at that,” he said, his tone idle and matter of fact. Risha said she’d be more than happy to test the assertion.

Blake took his time with foreplay, his attention on Alice but drifting frequently over to what Avon was doing—the way his hand stroked down Risha’s breastbone, the steady, technical competence of his movements. The turn of his wrist was so graceful as he pushed his fingers into Risha and twisted them—the practiced speed with which he flickered over her clit impressive. Avon evidently knew exactly what he was doing, and _was_ skilled. Blake felt he fingered Alice open with comparatively less finesse. Risha made a small squeak, and Blake could feel Avon’s radiating satisfaction. Avon always did take pleasure in being good at things.

“Ready?” Blake asked Alice.

“Very,” she said heavily. Blake arranged her legs (for some reason it annoyed him a little, that these were brushing Avon, resting between him and the other man, but it couldn’t be helped). He sank into her with a small groan, and felt Avon stiffen next to him, stifling a noise himself, as though Blake’s pleasure were catching. The thought made Blake a little dizzy (he’d always wanted to force Avon to feel, to respond to him), and he applied himself to Alice with renewed vigor.

Avon made Risha come thrashing, twisting her head on the bed and disarranging her pinned blonde hair.

“Well done,” Blake murmured.

“Thank you,” Avon responded with a purr.

(Risha rolled her eyes, but gently, apparently finding it difficult to be properly annoyed with the man who’d just brought her off nicely. And after all, Alice had given her a high-five on coming out of the bathroom. She couldn’t really talk.)

Blake felt a sudden impulse of lust, and bent down to kiss Alice extravagantly to express it, twisting a hand briefly in her hair. Alice allowed it, but Blake wished she might demonstrate a bit more enthusiasm. He tried to work it out of her, but she seemed in a mood to be languid, and caresses only made her more so. It was fine, just not _quite_ what Blake wanted right now. He liked passion, liked to be _wanted_.

When he came back up for air, Risha had slipped away to the bathroom. Avon was leaning back on the bed, propping himself on his elbow next to Alice. After a moment, with a wicked expression, he leaned in to whisper something into Alice’s ear—the seductive tone of a suggestion. With a conspiratorial smile, Alice turned her head to kiss and lick Blake’s hand where it rested on her shoulder, and Blake swore quietly, maintaining the steady pace of the fuck with an effort of will—Avon must have noticed that he had a thing about hands. Blake supposed it wasn’t subtle. Avon’s grin widened, and Blake found that smug pleasure hotter than Alice’s hitherto patient submission.

Avon watched Alice, as though bored, and when Alice moaned in response to a deep thrust Blake caught a hint of something angry or sad in Avon’s expression, quickly buried. Blake put a hand on Avon’s knee, and Avon looked up at him, his always-dark eyes darker still with lust. Avon was hard, Blake could see. No wonder. His turn next, Blake supposed.

Avon obligingly sat up in response to the wordless summons, bringing his face close to Blake’s. Blake spoke very low, his words audible only to Avon. “Do you want Alice? Is that it? We could ask if they’d mind sharing.” He wouldn’t. In fact he found the idea did something for him.

Avon let out a light huff of laughter, and, to Blake’s surprise, draped his arms around Blake’s shoulders so he could murmur into Blake’s ear. “That’s very sweet of you, but unnecessary. My,” he drawled, glancing down to where Blake was patiently working, watching Blake push in deep and slide back out, “you do have stamina.”

Blake didn’t want to say that torture had made him very, very good at controlling his physical responses. Alice didn’t know he’d been tortured. Avon did, and would either be made unhappy by the reminder or, even less pleasantly, wouldn’t care at all. Alice seemed to find the resultant discipline satisfying, at any rate.

Risha returned and Avon pulled away from Blake. She asked if Avon would like her to return the favor—she’s only given him a quick hand-job at the restaurant. Did he want her on her knees? “Oh yes.” Blake could have guessed he’d like that one. And then Avon was next to him again, facing the opposite direction, their sides touching as Risha sucked him off.

Blake caught a glimpse of Avon’s open-mouthed, gasping expression—it seemed Avon veered between being totally in control and wildly, helplessly responsive—and suddenly Blake felt close to coming, let himself speed up, ground Alice’s clit hard under his thumb rather than idly petting her. Alice grunted, pleased, but Avon’s mouth was so near his ear Blake could pretty much only hear Avon’s accelerating, ragged breathing. Avon whined and Blake came, wildly reaching out and clutching Avon’s shoulder as he did so. Again, as if pleasure were communicable, he could feel Avon trembling under his squeezing hand, heard him curse and come. Blake dropped his hand and finished off Alice as Avon slumped against him, as though it were perfectly natural that they should lean against each other, spent and panting in the aftermath. Without thinking about it, Blake tilted his arm so Avon’s head could rest more comfortably against his shoulder.

They all cleaned themselves up and said polite farewells, and when the women had departed Blake looked around the room with a raised eyebrow.

“At least we have our own beds to go back to,” he ventured, aware that Avon wouldn’t have appreciated the inconvenience of crowding into this one with him.

“Yes,” Avon said, after a moment.

***

God, that had been bizarre, Blake thought back in his own bed. Pleasant and frankly _very_ sexually interesting, but also _absolutely_ bizarre. He wondered if—well, would it be—forward, or rude, if he asked Avon if he wanted to do it again sometime?

Yes, Blake reluctantly decided, it would be. Tonight had been an accident of logistics, which Avon had allowed but certainly wouldn’t want to repeat. Rationally, Blake knew that Avon didn’t want much to do with him, and that he shouldn’t make the mistake of letting himself think otherwise. Even the lightest friendly overtures towards Avon only met with scathing rebuttals.

But the following evening, Avon surprised Blake. “I think I’d like to go out again,” he suggested, having come in to lounge on the flight-deck couch. “How about you?”

“I might.” Blake said evenly, watching the radar. Cally and Vila were coming back to relieve their watch, so Blake did have further leave coming. He bit his thumb. “Together?” he asked.

“Why abandon a successful strategy?”

“All right,” Blake conceded, feeling an unaccustomed enthusiasm for a routine attempt to pick someone up.

Avon went down first to find them another decent bar, and Blake followed an hour later, when he’d finished handing over to Cally.

“Someone’s meeting me back at the hotel later,” Avon said when they met up.

Blake blinked at him. “That was quick.”

Avon’s expression was self-satisfied. “He’s busy at present, but rather interested.”

Blake frowned at that, and Avon caught the disquiet. “Problem, Blake? Surely _you_ aren’t homophobic?”

Blake shook his head, surprised by the suggestion. “I’m bi myself.”

“Yes,” Avon said, smiling, as though amused by some private joke. “I thought you were.”

“Did you?”

Avon shrugged. “One can tell.”

“Generally,” Blake agreed. “No, there isn’t anything wrong, I was just—surprised, I suppose. I don’t know why. It’s nothing.”

“All right,” Avon said. “It’s convenient that it doesn’t bother you, because I’m afraid that conference is still going on. I managed to secure another room—just the one, at a different hotel. You’re fine with the same arrangement?”

Blake thought of the way Avon had twitched under Blake’s hand as he’d come and swallowed. “Yes.”

Avon smiled at him, a curiously unreadable expression. “Good. Well then, let’s find you a friend. I need to kill time until mine’s free.”

In the bar Avon had picked out for them (nice, Blake thought absently—it was more tasteful than the previous night’s), Avon glanced around at the company. “What sort of men do you like?” he asked idly.

“Somehow I don’t feel like that tonight,” Blake said. It would feel—strange, to have another man with Avon there. Somehow he didn’t fully like the idea of _Avon_ doing it either, but it wasn’t as though he could police Avon’s choices or kick Avon out of his own room. Nor did he like the idea of losing Avon’s company for the evening. Besides, Blake thought, whoever Avon had picked up would of necessity be disposable, whatever their gender was. He and Avon were the people who knew each other and mattered to each other. So Avon could choose whomever he wanted without it presenting a problem.

That didn’t make him feel all that much better about the idea, though he wasn’t sure why. For some reason he found he didn’t even want to think about the question. His mind slid away from it, could gain no purchase. He didn’t _want_ to look at it, because it felt dangerous, as though forcing himself to answer it would ruin everything. This didn’t _have_ to be complicated. He needed occasional sex when he got the opportunity, like anyone else did—needed a nice evening, needed shore leave, and Avon. So for once, he didn’t push himself. Some things didn’t have to be interrogated. This wasn’t bloody politics; it was just a night out.

“A woman, then,” Avon conceded, watching Blake closely, “for tonight, at least. I imagine you can find something to like about most people, but what do you _really_ want?”

“There’s not a lot of point in working that out,” Blake said, suddenly a touch irritated. “It’s not as though I’m in the market for a relationship right now.”

“No?” Avon said.

“Well, obviously,” Blake said, moderating his sharp tone. It wasn’t Avon’s fault that he couldn’t have what he wanted. “There are the physical obstacles—the way we travel. But more than that, I know I’d be a danger to anyone I was seriously involved with. Unless whoever I was dating was _also_ a wanted criminal, there’d no way I could justify it. And even if I could make it work, I’m so—” Blake made a frustrated gesture, “given over to this. I can’t afford to prioritize a relationship the way I’d really _like_ to in better circumstances—”

“You prefer to offer yourself to someone totally,” Avon said, and Blake—thought this must sound _idiotic_ to Avon, and narrowed his eyes, but nodded. “And you can’t, at present,” Avon continued. “So you’re not even thinking along those lines. Not allowing yourself to consider the prospect, much less to look around you. I can understand that.”

Could he?

Blake supposed, given that Avon had lost a partner and seemed still affected by that loss, that perhaps he could.

Avon continued to work at it, like he did any problem. “You’d need someone who was properly involved in your work—someone who could find ways to pull the personal out of you even in the midst of all this, as well. Who could _make_ you give yourself,” Avon clarified, his eyes sharpening with intent as he looked at Blake, defining the shape of the issue, “the way you want to. The way anyone appropriate for you would demand. While, of course, understanding who and what you are, and what commitments that necessitates. She would, I suppose,” Avon said, taking a drink, “need to be intelligent. Passionate, dedicated to you. Yet commensurately strong-willed, so you didn’t swallow her whole, or drag her under with an inadequately-considered decision and hate yourself for it afterwards. A good sense of humor wouldn’t hurt. What else do you like?”

Blake rolled his eyes. “Gorgeous eyes, a devastating smile, a wide anti-authoritarian streak and a strong sense of romance and adventure. And where am I to find this paragon?”

Avon shrugged, smiling again, just a little—a wistful thing, in the corner of his mouth. “These things simply happen, sometimes. Personally I have never _expected_ to fall in love—it hasn’t seemed likely, and the circumstances have always been ridiculous.”

There was something heady and promising in the way Avon was bothering to properly talk to him tonight, seemingly just for the pleasure of it. It might be just a repeat of last night’s conversation, which Blake was fairly sure had been a pretext for a contest Avon hadn’t managed to introduce. Still—it might _not_ be. Blake _wanted_ it not to be, and so he took a risk.

“Tell me about them, then. These things that happen.”

Avon didn’t shut Blake down, but didn’t take him up on it either. “Another time, perhaps. There,” Avon lighted on someone who’d just walked in. Slender, with a middle-eastern complexion. A mass of dark hair. Full lips. “Is she your type, Blake?”

“She’s certainly lovely.” Blake watched her get a drink, watched her mouth press against the glass.

Avon’s expression flickered. “‘Lovely’, is she. Well, then. I’ll go see if she can hold a half-decent conversation. You like that, even in your stop-gaps.”

“I can _manage_ ,” Blake said, annoyed at the implication that he couldn’t, starting to stand.

Avon pressed him back down with a hand on his shoulder. “Let me do this for you,” he said quietly. “After all, I seem to have good luck this evening.”

“You did net yours quickly enough,” Blake conceded, finding Avon’s half-gallantry odd, but pleasant.

Avon laughed outright. “Well. Not _that_ quickly.”

Blake thought Avon’s standards must be high indeed, if he thought ‘considerably less than an hour’ excessive. He watched Avon slink to the bar, tap the woman on the shoulder, and smile. It wasn’t quite one of Avon’s rare, sincere smiles, but it was nice, in its mannered way. A minute’s conversation. A nod towards Blake—the flicker of her eyes towards the table. Assessing, liking.

“Jake, allow me to introduce you to Gina,” Avon said, returning with both another drink and a partner for Blake.

Blake had a pleasant conversation with Gina, similar to and different from last night’s conversation with Alice. This time, having no one to seduce in his own right, Avon was included in the conversation, though he made it clear that Gina was _Blake’s_ date. Still, Avon was unfailingly pleasant to her, and Blake appreciated his effort.

After a few drinks Avon checked his datapad and suggested a move to the hotel, apparently having received some sort of signal from his partner for the evening. They took a cab, and Avon asked Blake to run up to the room while he waited for his appointment—Avon didn’t want the man to avoid him because he saw Avon had other company. Gina had ducked into the restroom in the lobby—Avon said he’d explain where Blake had gone when she came back.

Some minutes later Avon entered the room he’d booked, finding Blake contemplating the room’s large mirror with a degree of self-conscious amusement.

“What are we going to do with this?” Blake asked, nodding at it.

“Oh, the usual, I expect,” Avon said, with an attractive gleam in his eye. “This hotel is popular, with a certain clientele, for just that reason—apparently all their suites have one.”

“Has your man been delayed?” Blake asked politely, noticing that Avon was alone and trying not to feel a bewildering satisfaction at that. Why be awful about anyone’s disappointment, let alone a friend’s? He _was_ Avon’s friend, even if Avon wasn’t his.

“I’m afraid no one else is coming,” Avon said wryly.

“You’ve been stood up?” Blake asked with sympathy and bemusement. Something unexpected must have happened; the man must be kicking himself. Who would stand up Avon, if they’d been offered a night with him? Only an idiot, and Avon wouldn’t be interested in an idiot.

“Hm.” Blake thought, brining his hand to his mouth. “Avon, I could ask Gina if she’d enjoy a threesome. I wouldn’t mind.”

Blake didn’t want Avon to feel left out, and he found that rather than filling him with jealousy or even annoyance, the idea of the two of them sharing Gina appealed to him enormously. Avon could fuck her first. He’d be competitive, would want to show Blake how it was done. And Blake would pay attention to the demonstration. Blake bet Avon _was_ excellent at it, either in precision or in passion. And then he could slide in after Avon had finished, Gina’s cunt still slick with Avon, her dark hair mussed and her thick lips parted around moans. A lot of women liked a nice, long fuck like that. If she wasn’t too sensitive, they could make her come multiple times. Take it in turns. Or maybe, if they were _very_ sweet to her, she’d let Blake take her cunt while Avon used his steady, precise fingers to open up her arse. Over her shoulder Blake would be able to see Avon’s face, and he’d be able to see Avon’s body as he worked. Then Avon could take her from behind as Blake continued to fuck her, their cocks pressing against one another through the thin wall of her flesh, Gina gasping and full, and Blake could groan and lean over and kiss his— _her_ lovely, generous mouth. Dark hair in his hands, smooth skin under his fingertips, the way Avon _breathed_ when he came, like he was choking on air—

“No,” Avon said, observing Blake’s controlled, tense expression critically, “I don’t think you would mind at all. And I admit, the idea is not totally without appeal for me, either. But there is a problem, Blake. Unfortunately, I’ve sent Gina home. I’m afraid I told her you’d suddenly taken ill. Naturally I extended your apologies. A pleasant enough woman, but we don’t need her.”

Blake blinked at Avon, and opened his mouth to say something.

“Oh, don’t be stupid,” Avon hissed, suddenly seeming agitated, after the glacial calm with which he’d made his totally unexpected declaration. “You _know_ why. We neither need nor want her.” He stepped forward, placing a hand on Blake’s chest, staring down at it as if it were exceptionally interesting. “It’s better if it’s just us.” He ran his hand down Blake’s torso, and Blake’s breath caught.

“Avon—”

“You and I,” Avon said, continuing to caress Blake through his shirt, “are an inevitability, Blake. We are a foregone conclusion. We always have been. I’d decided to tell you that, last night. And then,” Avon smiled unpleasantly, and the expression slipped into something savage, “you let yourself be picked up in front of me.” Avon’s clever hand slipped to pop open the button of Blake’s trousers, and Blake shut his eyes. The intense unreality of the moment made it impossible for him to _react_ to it.

“No,” Avon corrected him, taking Blake’s cock in his hand and stroking hard. “Look at me.” Blake did—he couldn’t have helped doing it.

“You did that, Blake. To _me_. As though you weren’t mine. Fine, I thought. Two can play at that. I even liked the game, in its way. But we’re done with all that now. I only needed to indulge you with that woman tonight to ensure you came along nicely.”

Blake looked at him, shocked and even a little unnerved by the wholly unexpected possessive intensity.

Avon smiled lazily. “You don’t understand yet, do you?” He shook his head, fondly. “Here,” he said, and kissed Blake.

 _Oh,_ Blake thought, rendered stupid by it. Avon clenched his hand around Blake’s cock and drove his tongue into Blake’s mouth. He brought his other arm up to clutch Blake in a desperate embrace. Avon kissed him like his life depended on it. His life often depended on Blake, and Blake’s on him. Avon kissed him like that was the case, and as though that was even correct and appropriate. Blake felt himself surging desperately against Avon, as though he might come in Avon’s hand in a moment, with just the right flick of Avon’s careful wrist. As though the building pleasure passing between them might stop his heart. As though he wanted that peak, that cessation, and to die of this, in Avon’s arms.

Avon drew back. “Well?” he asked crisply, sounding confident and yet pumping Blake hard to reinforce his point, as though he were worried Blake might need convincing.

“I begin to see what you mean,” Blake admitted, leaning in to kiss him again. Avon’s authoritative grip on his cock, the absolute possession with which Avon took his mouth—he’d have to be insensate, not to know how superlatively fine it was.

“Mm,” Avon said, pulling back after a moment. “ _Good_. Now,” he said, squeezing Blake’s cock in his hand, “imagine my ‘date’ had been real—”

“Imagine,” Blake drawled, pressing Avon against him with a hand at the small of his back, “there had actually been a conference going on, forcing us to use the same room.”

Avon smirked. “Yes. But let me finish. I’ve brought a man into the room. Someone who isn’t you is going to fuck me to pieces, and I’m going to make you watch. Are you happy, Blake?” He took in Blake’s stormy expression with languid satisfaction. “No, I thought not. Some of last night _was_ very interesting. And some of it was torture, which you are going to make up to me at length. I got through _that_ portion of the proceedings by telling myself that you were showing me what you could do. And you were, weren’t you, Blake?” Avon ran a finger of his free hand down Blake’s cheek and stared at Blake’s lips. His voice dropped to a murmur. “That nice long fuck. Showing off for me.” Avon punctuated his thoughts with hard strokes. “Didn’t you like me watching?”

“God, yes,” Blake groaned, realized the extent to which he had. The extent to which, though he liked to please people, to give them what they wanted, Avon was what _he_ wanted.

Absolute conviction, like when he knew something was terribly wrong or terribly right, welled up in Blake when they touched like this. He’d always wanted Avon so much. His approval, his attention, shreds of his affection. He’d told himself not to expect anything, not to hope for anything, but he’d been unable to let it go, to take rejection gracefully. He’d kept wanting. It had been inescapably personal. The sound of Avon saying ‘you and I’, just that, was going to lick through his dreams, was going to swim up into his mind when he touched himself. He knew it.

“And I thought,” Avon continued, “that really, it was all right. After all, it would be me next, and me for the foreseeable future, and thus I could afford to be generous. To let you have a pleasant last encounter.”

“Are you—?” Blake pushed Avon back, freeing himself. Avon’s eyes flared like he was panicked, under all that eerie, devastating confidence. His hands clenched like he wanted to pull Blake back to him, but he didn’t move.

“I would have _sworn_ you hated me,” Blake insisted, getting his breath back. He was still hard, but ignoring it as best he could. A kiss wasn’t an argument, it _couldn’t_ be.

“Close,” Avon said, swallowing. “I—No, no, let me touch you,” he said.

He was clearly aching with want. Blake had never felt such a rich, varied pulse of desire. Broader and thicker than lust. He couldn’t stand against it—it was the most attractive thing he’d ever seen. Blake held out a hand, and Avon stepped back to him and relaxed, as though this was better, some great relief. He didn’t touch Blake sexually, but wrapped his arms around Blake, holding him tightly.

“Close,” Avon repeated. “I—” Avon breathed, “oh, I _adore_ you. I didn’t want to, I had no _choice_ in the matter. You thought you wanted to be my friend, whereas I wanted to eat you alive. What was I supposed to do, make _small talk?_ For a while, I admit, I did hate you. I hated what you were doing to me, and everything I could tell you would do to me. The last person I loved died under Federation interrogation—do you think I _wanted_ to form an attachment to someone hell-bent on going the same way? And so soon after Anna.” Avon drew back to look at Blake, and his eyes flashed with startling anger. “ _Damn_ you for not coming first, or years later; for never _meeting_ me on Aquitar, and for not even letting me _grieve_ for Anna before coming in and demanding every feeling I had.”

“And you didn’t even know what was going on or what you wanted, even as you kept offering yourself up to me on a platter,” Avon said, laughing bitterly. “And after all, why should you have known? You’d already been tortured, and you weren’t thinking of yourself as a _person_ at present. Just a function of your work, a sort of machine, to be serviced with single-serving sexual encounters, where you’re so _nice_ to them all it’s clear you’re pretending you have someone to love for the space of an hour. Giving them _my_ —” He cut himself off abruptly. Refocused. “And when anyone can see you _need_ a partner—were you _ever_ single, before the mind-wipe?”

Avon had been talking about himself, Blake saw in an instant. When he’d pretended to think about the sort of person who might be appropriate for Blake, he’d been patiently elaborating how he could be right for Blake, how he _was_ right for Blake. After all—who ripped a personal reaction out of him more reliably than Avon? And Avon was right about the larger question too—Blake did belong to Avon. Blake had no idea how long he had done, but it was inescapably obvious in the way they’d kissed, and in the way Avon’s head had come to rest neatly in the hollow of his shoulder after they’d fucked other people. In how willing he’d been to refuse to consider and to ignore anything that might threaten this opportunity to get even fractionally closer to the man.

Blake winced at Avon’s remark about whether he’d spent much time single. “Not—really, no. Serial monogamy. Though I was a great deal choosier about my long-term partners than I have been about my short-term.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Avon said dryly. “Consider this terminal monogamy.” Avon looked at him with that vastness of desire, and Blake felt it spike through him. In the last ten minutes, he’d become addicted to it.

“I love the way you look at me,” Blake said, staring at him intently in return.

“I noticed last night,” Avon said. “You needed to kiss her when you looked at _me_. You needed to fuck her harder when _I_ touched you. Why do you imagine the room has a mirror?” He reclaimed Blake’s cock, stroking it again. “What did you suppose I was getting you ready for?”

So Avon wanted Blake to be able to see Avon’s face while Blake fucked him. Not a bad idea at all.

But Blake was a bit put off by the unaccustomed passivity that had been forced upon him by Avon’s confession and elaborate trap, and eager to shake it off and pull his own weight.

“Yes, you’ve done very well so far,” Blake admitted, whipping Avon around to face the mirror and rumbling into his ear. He snaked a hand into Avon’s trousers and brought out his lovely, hard, blood-flushed cock. He ground against Avon’s arse and forced him to watch his own flushed face as Blake stroked him. “But then, as you say, I was too distracted to understand what was going on, or what I wanted. Now that I’m clear on that, I imagine I’ll provide you with _something_ more of a challenge.”

“You always do,” Avon murmured, arching obligingly into Blake’s touch, keeping his eyes open, as he’d been implicitly instructed to do.

“You’re going to tell me all about how you want me while I take you,” Blake murmured, watching Avon’s face in the mirror as he said it, one hand still moving in a slow caress, the other holding Avon to him. “You’re not going to hold anything back. When it started, when it hurt worst, when you thought about it, what you want me to do to you.” Blake knew this was crazy, but madness was an _incredibly_ attractive look on Avon. If being rational meant forgoing this ecstatic lunacy, Blake wanted none of it. “Say you love me, Avon.”

An instant of awful wonder, which Avon didn’t try to hide, yielded to a manic glitter of triumph.

“I love you,” he said, terrifyingly earnest. “I love you, and you’re mine.”

Blake nodded sharply, and Avon smiled like a sadist at a torture session.

“You’ll say it too,” Avon promised him. “I’ll make you say it. You love me to death. And you can do it a lot harder on the bed.” His grin shifted to something playful, challenging. “Last night you fucked what’s her name—”

“Alice,” Blake reminded him.

“You don’t remember it,” Avon informed him, “for twenty minutes.”

“You _timed_ it?”

“Oh,” Avon said darkly, “I timed it. There was an old-fashioned clock on the wall. The movement of the minute-hand made me sick to my stomach. She had twenty minutes of your time that belonged to me, and I expect no less. However while what’s her name—” He allowed Blake the opportunity to repeat his mistake, and smiled complacently when Blake didn’t correct him, “seemed content to simply _lie_ there, _I_ will be making it considerably more difficult for you not to come.”

“You’re not going to win this,” Blake cautioned him. “Enduring your provocations is my _specialty_.”

“What a fortunate coincidence. Driving you mad is mine,” Avon retorted, twisting and shoving Blake down onto the bed.

***

Ten minutes of preparation and twenty-one minutes of penetrative sex later, while they both panted in the aftermath, Blake cleared his throat. The sound was somehow redolent of smugness.

“A win to me, I think. A _tribute_ to my patience and endurance.”

Avon snorted. “I got you to fuck me for twenty-one minutes solid. Possibly the nicest twenty-one minutes of the past two years. You came _begging_ for me. I hardly count that as a loss.”

“Tell yourself that if it helps you sleep at night,” Blake said.

“A solid fuck helps me sleep at night,” Avon volunteered, caressing Blake’s arm proprietorially.

Blake frowned. “Don’t you have quite severe issues with insomnia?”

Avon smirked. “Not anymore.”

“Do you want it?” Blake asked with studied casualness after a moment, and he’d have sworn he could _feel_ Avon’s smirk widening, so palpable was his satisfaction.

“Obviously.”

“I love you,” Blake said, intensity dragging his voice low and rough.

“Yes,” Avon purred, “I know. And now, so do you.”


End file.
